Being and Living in an Australian Urban Community

There is a limited evidence base which highlights the plight of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations living in urban areas and the issues that impact on Indigenous achievements in education, health status, housing needs, rates of incarceration and the struggle for cultural recognition. This is despite over 70 % of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia now living in urban or regional urban areas (ABS 2008). The statistics demonstrate that living in urban centres is as much part of reality for Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as living in a remote discrete community. Using the capital city of Brisbane, Queensland as a case study, this paper will explore some of the issues that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples face against a backdrop of the statistics and some of the current literature. It will additionally explore why there has been limited research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations in urban areas and highlight some of the innovative research taking place which will begin to redress this gap. The research issues presented within this paper will resonate with some of the Native American and Indigenous movement patterns and associated issues additionally occurring in the United States of America, Canada and New Zealand.

Identifying the presence of psychopathy in the community

Aim: Researchers have suggested that approximately 1% of individuals with psychopathic tendencies can successfully function within the community, although there has been a lack of research to support this claim. The current study aimed to identify individuals with psychopathic tendencies within a community sample and furthermore the socio-demographic correlates of this community integrated psychopath (e.g. relationship stability, substance use, and employment status). Procedure: 300 participants completed the Self-Reported Psychopathy scale – version 3 which contains four core psychopathy subfactors: (a) Interpersonal Manipulation, (b) Callous Affect, (c) Erratic Lifestyle and (d) Criminal Tendencies as well as the Paulhus Deception Scales to explore the effect of impression management and self-deception on the identification of psychopathy. Findings: Results indicated that at least 1% of the current community displayed characteristics consistent with psychopathic tendencies. A series of bivariate and multivariate statistical analyses were conducted which indicated that gender, age and alcohol misuse were predictive of psychopathy scores for this sample. More specifically, younger males who tend to misuse alcohol were found to be most likely to have psychopathic tendencies. Interestingly, impression management and self-deception was not associated with such tendencies. Discussion: The results provide some support for the assertion that individuals with psychopathic tendencies can be identified within the community (regardless of impression management techniques) and that such tendencies are associated with specific socio-demographic characteristics.

Money laundering and FATF compliance by the international community

This paper examines the anti-money laundering systems of Australia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States of America (USA), the extent to which they have implemented the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations, and how compliance with these recommendations is affected by local cultural and economic factors. The paper makes use of FATF evaluation reports to compare the countries’ compliance; it examines some of the underlying cultural considerations and culture-specific ethical issues that affect the extent of compliance, and how cultural and ethical considerations may affect good governance. The findings indicate that the UK and the USA are the most advanced with regards to their compliance with the FATF recommendations and Australia and the UAE less so. The UAE is in particular found to be least compliant. We relate this finding to previous work on how a country’s legal and financial systems develop in line with its religion, culture and socio-economic situation, and examine how such local factors have affected the UAE’s financial and anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) systems. This research will be of interest to policy-makers and government agencies involved in addressing money laundering and its successful detection and prosecution.

The old face of 'new' social networks : the republic of letters as a virtual community

This paper explores the idea of virtual participation through the historical example of the republic of letters in early modern Europe (circa 1500-1800). By reflecting on the construction of virtuality in a historical context, and more specifically in a pre-digital environment, this paper calls attention to accusations of technological determinism in ongoing research concerning the affordances of the Internet and related media of communication. It argues that ‘the virtual’ is not synonymous with ‘the digital’ and suggests that, in order to articulate what is novel about modern technologies, we must first understand the social interactions underpinning the relationships which are facilitated through those technologies. By analysing the construction of virtuality in a pre-digital environment, this paper thus offers a baseline from which scholars might consider what is different about the modes of interaction and communication being engaged in via modern media.

Finding the remote: Immersive learning in an outback community

Real-world design education projects present particular challenges when in a place remote from and distinctively different to students’ familiar territory. The teaching challenge is to assist students to translate the skills they learn at university into an entirely new context, facilitating a project they will learn from, and the community will value. In 2008 QUT design and engineering students undertook a project called Linking Karumba for this remote Queensland town. They engaged with a landscape, climate and community dramatically different from their base in urban Brisbane, and in a fortnight produced locally responsive strategic planning options. The theoretical approach to this was twofold: they needed to make a rapid shift along a continuum from being “outsiders” towards becoming “insiders” (Relph 1976), and to create designs responsive to local distinctiveness (Cumberlidge and Musgrave 2007). This paper outlines Linking Karumba’s teaching strategy via an analogy with the “immersion” method in bilingual education. Three teaching methods were adopted. Firstly, the overall framework drew on Brockbank and McGill (1998), and Thomas’ (2006a) approaches to student reflective practice. Within this, Girot’s “Four Trace Concepts” (1999) inspired exercises for finding Karumba and moving toward insideness; and a program of community engagement sought immersion in local distinctiveness, and “conversation” between the differing forms of knowledge and capacities embedded within the community and students (Armstrong 1999, Thomas 2006). The responsiveness of the student work to the character of Karumba’s culture and environment indicated remarkable levels of immersion, and the community highly valued the project outcomes: four strategic planning options which attracted $830 000 in state government funding for implementation.

Three theories and a process: engaging community

This study examines a dialogue process managers can use to explore community attitudes. The objectives of the research are to develop a dialogue process that engages community audiences on climate mitigation strategies. Secondly, to understand participants perspectives and potential reactions in particular to underground storage of CO2 and determine the strategies that most effectively engage people in dialogue to enable the climate change debate to move forward. Finally, to develop a dialogue process that can be used by managers on other politically sensitive topics. Knowledge of the dynamics of psychosocial relationships and communication between stakeholders contributed to increased understanding of the issues. The key findings of this study indicate that the public can be engaged in dialogue on the issue of CO2 capture and storage and low emission technologies without engendering adverse reactions. The dialogue process is critical to participant’s engagement and led to behaviour change in energy use.

Projecting Computational Sense of Self: A Study of Transition in a Chronic Illness Online Community

We report on analysis of discussions in an online community of people with chronic illness using socio-cognitively motivated, automatically produced semantic spaces. The analysis aims to further the emerging theory of "transition" (how people can learn to incorporate the consequences of illness into their lives). An automatically derived representation of sense of self for individuals is created in the semantic space by the analysis of the email utterances of the community members. The movement over time of the sense of self is visualised, via projection, with respect to axes of "ordinariness" and "extra-ordinariness". Qualitative evaluation shows that the visualisation is paralleled by the transitions of people during the course of their illness. The research aims to progress tools for analysis of textual data to promote greater use of tacit knowledge as found in online virtual communities. We hope it also encourages further interest in representation of sense-of-self.

A cross-cultural approach towards designing digital noticeboards with a remote aboriginal community

This working paper reflects upon the opportunities and challenges of designing a form of digital noticeboard system with a remote Aboriginal community that supports their aspirations for both internal and external communication. The project itself has evolved from a relationship built through ecological work between scientists and the local community on the Groote Eylandt archipelago to study native populations of animal species over the long term. In the course of this work the aspiration has emerged to explore how digital noticeboards might support communication on the island and externally. This paper introduces the community, the context and the history of the project. We then reflect upon the science project, its outcomes and a framework empowering the Aboriginal viewpoint, in order to draw lessons for extending what we see as a pragmatic and relationship based approach towards cross-cultural design.

Towards designing digital noticeboards with a remote indigenous community

This position paper reflects upon the opportunities and challenges of designing a digital noticeboard system with a remote indigenous community that supports their aspirations for both internal and external communication. The project itself has evolved from a relationship built through ecological work between scientists and the local community on the Groote Eylandt archipelago to study native populations of animal species over the long term. In the course of this work the aspiration has emerged to explore how digital noticeboards might promote and communicate aspects of work and life on the island through both the web and touchscreen noticeboards. This paper introduces the community, the context and the history of the project. We then reflect upon the science project and its outcomes, in order to draw lessons for extending what we see as a pragmatic and relationship based approach towards design.

A cisgender girl in a transgender world : The methodological challenges of researching in the transgender community

The available research literature on intimate partner violence is often centred around a heteronormative understanding of gender, relationships and violence. When it comes to intimate partner violence in the transgender community, the research is limited or nonexistent due in part to the methodological issues of visibility and access by those outside this community. Drawing from Renzetti (1992, 1995), McClennen (2003), and the feminist participatory research model, this paper examines the techniques for overcoming the methodological barriers as a cisgender or 'normatively gendered' woman in a transgender community. Throughout the research with the transgender community, five strategies for overcoming methodological barriers were developed: Cultural Immersion, Commitment and Visibility, Sensitivity and Acceptance, Honesty, and Communication. This paper explores how utilising these strategies enabled access to the transgender community in order to conduct effective research.

Collaborative extension of biodiversity monitoring protocols in the bird watching community

Citizen science projects have demonstrated the advantages of people with limited relevant prior knowledge participating in research. However, there is a difference between engaging the general public in a scientific project and entering an established expert community to conduct research. This paper describes our ongoing acoustic biodiversity monitoring collaborations with the bird watching community. We report on findings gathered over six years from participation in bird walks, observing conservation efforts, and records of personal activities of experienced birders. We offer an empirical study into extending existing protocols through in-context collaborative design involving scientists and domain experts.